Under the Ice

Perhaps he'd roll over later, release her from his restraint and he'd be none the wiser? Given how tired she felt, that seemed a reasonable idea, so she settled down and tried to sleep. At least having someone to hold had stopped him talking and it wasn't an altogether unpleasant place to be. It had been a long time since she'd shared a bed.

She sensed the dark blanket of slumber creeping up, slowly at first, then all at once and she was asleep.

Hannah dreamed. She was dreaming of a man she'd once loved and who had loved her back. He was kind and passionate, strong and tender. She remembered being in his bed, feeling his weight and his arousal, his erection.

She woke with a start and opened her eyes. She was now lying on her side. Noah was on his back, gently snoring. Barely a snore at all, more like breathing with a hint of disapproval.

Her leg was over his, but she couldn't remember moving it there. Nor could she remember holding his erection, but there it was in her hand. Noah must have kicked off his base layer at some point.

Her fingers were gently furled around his shaft the way we sometimes hold a finger, but his erection was quite a bit bigger. She loosened her grip but his hand came to rest over hers.

She was about to ask Noah if he was asleep, but then stopped to weigh the possible replies. If he said 'No' then how could she explain holding his cock? If he gave no reply how could she know he was telling the truth, or not telling anything, because he couldn't lie if he was truly asleep.

"Noah?" Hannah asked, withdrawing her hand from his groin and deciding on a more honest approach.

"Claudia, min elskede," he replied, pulling her closer and turning his face into her hair with a contented sigh.

'I know what is the right thing to do, but neither can I deny how I feel,' Hannah thought to herself as she felt his lips placing kisses on her cheek.

In spite of herself, she turned her mouth to kiss him.

"Noah. Noah? This is Hannah. I'm Hannah, Noah, not Claudia." She whispered to him as he moved his arm to her waist. She owed him the choice. She could not blind him to what was happening in the innocence of his sleep. "Noah, this is Hannah. I'm Hannah, not Claudia."

She heard him make an intake of breath and the rhythm of his slumber broke. She guessed he slowly understood, the veil of sleep falling away from his mind.

"Hannah?" He puzzled, still hovering with a foot at threshold of both worlds.

"You were crying, Noah. You were missing Claudia, your sweetheart."

Noah nodded and pulled her closer, as though he were about to drift back through the doorway to dreams.

"I can be your love, Noah. Just this night, in this place, away from our worlds." Hannah soothed him with half whispered words.

"But Hannah..." Judgement crowded into Noah's wakefulness.

"Sssh, Noah. You've been alone too long and I want to share this with you. After this day, after all the things we have said and done. This feels the most natural thing in the world."

Hannah reached her hand to stroke his hair as she spoke and gently pulled him towards her, placing little kisses to his lips, kisses that said 'love' and 'let me'.

"Do you think about Claudia often, Noah," she asked and he gave a barely perceptible nod.

"I can be Hannah or Claudia, Noah. I don't mind. You're such a gentle, lovely man. I can say this. If our places were changed; if I were dead and Claudia were here in my place, then I'd be happy to see you make love to her. We all need love and intimacy, Noah."

Noah blinked in the almost dark of the room. He could see Hannah's eyelashes move, her eyes slowly surveying him, the placid calm in her face and the softness in her voice. Perhaps she was right? This was uncorrupted and pure. If this spirit, be it Hannah or Claudia or something of them both, were leading, then he would follow.

"I want you, Noah," Hannah breathed into his ear. "That's what I would say. Tell me what things Claudia would say."

Noah's jaw moved but he paused to make the words. When he did, his voice was thick and soft with emotion. "She would say, 'Fill me Noah, make me yours forever'."

"What else?" Hannah breathed back, her lips almost touching his.

"'I want your hands on me, Noah. Wet your fingers in me. Stroke me there.'"

Noah's hand had been resting at her waist and he moved to slip it under the hem of her vest. Skin on skin, familiar yet new to them both. He pressed his mouth to hers and she welcomed his tongue, relieved their decision was made.

Hannah raised herself as Noah lifted her vest over her head. She tugged at his t-shirt, anxious to feel his skin against hers.

The darkness acquitted his lips as he kissed her neck, high up, just there behind her ear, so that in the night a startled bird flew from its perch and fluttered deep inside her. Noah's soft kisses grew bolder as he realised this was no dream, though in the darkness he wasn't sure if his eyes were open or closed.

He kissed the fluted line of her neck where it rose from her shoulders, where the touch made her mew and draw her thighs together. His lips searched the line of her collarbone onto her shoulder and his hand rose, knowing where her breast lay. He swept his hand up the contours of her ribs until it found the rising drift of her breast, her nipple proud and bending on each of his fingers in turn. He drew a circle then, the back of his fingers trailed up to her shoulder, then down. His thumb and finger met at one nipple as his lips enclosed the pink nub of the other, as her fingers made a fist in his hair.

He felt her moving. She wriggled her legs and lifted her bottom. When she lifted her bottom he knew she was naked and her pedalling feet were now free. She was naked for him. Noah painted a grateful hand down her waist to the curve of her hips. She flexed her knee and let his hand slide under the smooth globe of her bottom.

His hand returned, his touch filled with her warmth and curves. Her slender arms encircled his head, sweeping the sides of his face so that he caught the homely scent of her skin. She pulled his face to hers, pressed her nose beside his, their lips brushing, their shared breath hot.

"Stroke me there," Hannah asked directly, with both her hands at his ears.

Noah made a moan of hunger and relief. He responded with a long urgent kiss, full of lust and hunger and she welcome his strength, opening her mouth a little wider, wanting his tongue to push her back, to feel it strong in her mouth. She made a little noise of frustration in her throat, because this was not enough.

Noah's shoulders rose over her and his arm extended down her body, his hand dividing the space between her thighs. She couldn't lie still. Her hips lifted towards his exploring fingers that raked her skin, making ripples in the taut flesh of her thighs.

As Noah lay on his side, she hooked her leg over his, to pull him closer as if to say 'I am open to you, I need your hand to fill this space.'

There was an urgency to their pace. Neither had patience for the sweet, slow languid touches of familiarity. They were greedy and needed to feast.

His hand rose to envelope all of her sex; all its hidden, secret space was his and she pressed back with her hips, wanting his fingers to grip her flesh, to squeeze the swelling lips that parted under his finger.

Noah knew her hunger -- he felt it himself. He pulled away the remaining covers to see her soft skin glowing in the flickering light of the stove. He knelt, a great dark shape between her open thighs, and saw her arms reaching out towards him, craving his touch.

He bent over her, breathing in the warmth of her stomach, and drew his face over its flatness, dragging his nose down to her fur and scent. He could smell her, her scent filling his head like a wolf with its prey. His tongue reached out, then drew back to taste the crease of her sex. He thought he heard her distant voice. She had an honest taste, not hiding behind pretences or promises. His tongue stretched again, curling now as the wet rasp of his tongue parted her smooth, pulpy lips.

Her thighs enclosed his head so that he became a prisoner to their demand. He had to fight to lick again, for she was bucking under him, pushing her sex against his face as though in anger.

Her could hear her voice, but her words were broken and her cries made no sense, until he heard the rhythm of words.

"Wet your fingers in me, Noah," she called in someone else's voice.

Noah shifted over her so he felt her smooth thigh between his, so soft on his skin. He supported himself over her, his face in a question over hers as she folded her arms in a swirl over his head.

"Wet your fingers in me, Noah," she whispered again, pulling his ear to her lips and breathing hot into his head.

His fingers obeyed, where they lay over her wetted sex. First one explored, then more boldly a second slipped inside her body. He rolled his fingers against each other, feeling their surface slick.

Without thinking he took those oily fingers and painted them first across his lips then hers, then kissed her. The circle complete, their bodies shared, her taste swapped between their tongues.

Hannah could feel the heavy weight of his hard sex as it bounced against her skin, nudging against her. Now it squeezed between their twisting bodies, now dropping between her thighs.

"I want you Noah, please. Fill me, make me yours." Her calm words surprised him. He was lying between her thighs, his back arched as he rested his weight on his arms.

She wanted to be smothered by him, to feel his weight on her, but Noah had charge of her body now. He knelt back on his ankles, lifted her hips onto his thighs and let her legs drape over his arms. He knew Claudia loved to be lifted like this and Hannah's gasp urged him on. She gripped his waist with her thighs. She would not let him go easily.

He pressed the shaft of his erection so its tip made a furrow through the parting crease of her sex. He felt the dip of her opening, but ignored it, running up her lips again. He heard her gasp as his slicked head uncovered her tip in its folded petals. Down again, he teased her. The oily wetness of her sex wet his fingers as they gripped his shaft. This time her little dip had opened, had grown more hungry. She tried to trick him by pushing down on him, but he was too quick. Then when tip met furled tip, she surrendered to his teasing pleasure.

Hannah's sex became a toy to his torment. He cheated her, never in one place long enough to let the feeling take root, not letting it to flower beyond a bud. He controlled the game. She accepted his rules, but how long would taunt her this way?

"Fill me Noah, fill me," she begged, her neck strained as her head found no relief or escape.

"Not yet, my love, not yet." Noah spoke softly, as though he were calming a frightened animal. "Soon, darling, soon."

He felt her impatient body writhe and arch in his arms, her thighs squeezing and releasing his waist. He changed the rules and the rhythm. Instead of long strokes through the pulp of her lips, her rolled his tip in little circles round her little nub, now unsheathed and bare to his touch.

He placed the flat of his hand over his penis, trapping it against her clit. As he rocked his hips, his shaft slithered against her in a tantric dance. She was trapped by his rhythm. Her body matched the beat and her orgasm began to build, knowing this time, surely this time, her would not cheat her. He could not be that cruel.

Her mind saw her body arch, her mouth open, her hands with fists full of bedclothes. In dreams we cry out but cannot; we fear death but it does not come. In this dream her voice was silent but she felt every inch of the piercing heat and the shock of her ecstasy.

Noah felt her wave rising, he heard her breath like a gasping swimmer, her slick hands fighting in a panic over his. Her hips jerked away, but her thighs gripped him tighter. The push and pull of her shrilling orgasm swelled up inside her. It was a wonder to him. He called to her in the dark, "Baby, oh my baby," as she shuddered and shook, her hands at her head then gripping the bedclothes, rising again. She was too distracted to think of her arched back and then... she was frozen there, pressed against him, until her legs began to shake and she collapsed into his open hands.

He leaned over her, the head of his penis poised at the tight welcome of her cunt. He rocked her hips forward to enclose him as he moved, sinking deeper inside while she stared back with wide eyed shudders, wordless beneath him. Her waves receded down the beach, leaving it empty and waiting for the slow tide of his weight on her.

Hannah was only slowly aware of these feelings but relished the comfort of his penis inside her. His shoulders towered over her, filling her head with the heat and scent of his body. She put her hands to his arms meaning to grip them, but she was weak, and they fell back limp. Her knees were flexed and raised, but not through her effort -- the huge bulk of his body held them trapped. He pushed into her gently so she felt continually filled, the pressure rising and falling in a continuous cycle.

He shifted, letting her spine at last unroll and her bottom touch the bed. He wanted her still, needing resistance to his thrusts. He quickened his pace, feeling the glow in his loins spread into his thighs as her words urged him on, her liquid friction dragging at the sheath of his hardness.

He ignored her discomfort because his own desire consumed him. He no longer cared if her cries were of pain or lust. She was under him and hot around his sex, that was enough. His hips rutted her and her legs held him tight, her fingers too small to pinch his thick arms, his shoulders too wide for her to cling to.

"Hannah, Hannah," he called, blind in that moment. That moment before the storm breaks and the air is thick. The moment when she reached inside him and pulled out the first pulse of his seed. The second pulse was his, stronger, erupting hot from his loins, spilling into hers. A third spasm and his seed trickled out of her. White tears shed on her coral skin. Then more, like echoes from distant thunder, heavy drips spilled from her crease to the gulley of her bottom.

His drugged eyes opened to see her face, her mouth open in smiling surprise, her brow furrowed in disbelief. He saw the sheen of heat on her cheeks and stray hairs slicked to her forehead.

He shuddered to a stop, the storm lulled into quiet intimacy. He brushed the strands of hair away and placed kisses where they had been. Her heart still raced, her voice sighed between laughing and tears; her hands clasped safely round his bowed neck and she placed kisses wherever her lips could touch.

He didn't want to lose the safety of her body, the cradle of her thighs that gently rocked him. He ground his hips on hers one last time, felt the rasp of short hair on their tender skin.

Her hands slipped down his muscled arms and fell to her breasts, covering them, suddenly shy. Her eyes searched his face as she feared she might forget this moment. The memory of his eyes, the ache in her body, the slick of their skin, the victory of want over restraint, the freedom from her own judgement.

Hannah knew how rare these feelings were, but already felt sadness as they melted away like the softening of his penis. She smiled back at him. She would never forget his smile. His pleased-as-punch smile. They had made that smile together.

In the stillness he could hear the blink of her tearful eyes and the click of her happy mouth, teeth wreathed in the sticky thickness of her smile.

Neither wanted to speak and break the spell. Words weren't needed. Noah climbed onto his knees to roll her on her side as though she were a sleeping child. He lay behind her, pulling her hips into his lap in a single movement. He rested his arm over hers, where she folded them over her breasts. She wriggled her shoulders back into him and found his other arm as her pillow. Content and surrounded by her man, she closed her eyes and smiled at the kisses in her hair.

* * * * *

Hannah woke before dawn, quite certain of where she was because all night the cabin had vibrated with the violence of the storm that had finally arrived. She lay listening to the moans in the air and hiss of ice being thrown angrily at the windows. There was something mechanical loose outside that banged periodically like a camp-site alarm.

There was a little light through the windows, but gloomy snow made curves on the glass. The stove puttered away to itself, keeping them warm. The air was tinged with fumes that made her eyes sting.

Noah breathed his giant's peaceful slumber. 'Like a great bear' she thought, then shivered at the picture the word conjured in her mind. She knew now that seeing a polar bear, or any bear, would always bring a stab of fear to her stomach. It would take her brain a while to disconnect the word bare from bear, but the context of the words mattered and gave them meaning. 'Will teddy bears elicit the same response?' she wondered.

'Not Noah-the-bear then. Perhaps ogre? My big Danish ogre. At least ogres are imaginary. Bears are not. They are really fucking not. I must check the association people have with ogre. It would awful to call him ogre and find people scowling at him as he stood next to her, all innocent and huge, like some Disney giant. Giant then?' Her thoughts chased themselves around in her head like playful puppies, because these were good thoughts, ones that made her smile.

Too often bad thoughts circled her consciousness. Guilt was a regular offender, with regret hard at its heels. Then shame -- shame was a lifer, a long stay convict locked in her head. Her brain was seldom free of shame.

'Last night though,' the conversation in her head chattered on. 'Fucking him. Like that. Feeling so involved, so focused -- I never thought rationally once, I just felt and did. That was so freeing... I really need a shower. My thighs are actually glued together... Maybe Noah has given me a potion and turned me into his mermaid? I could eat fish. In fact I'm quite hungry now. How long will he sleep? Is it too early to wake up?'

"Hannah, can you think a little quieter please?" Noah's voice made her jump. She was so startled she didn't know what to say in reply.

"How did you know I was thinking?" she finally asked with genuine curiosity.

"Because you're tapping your feet," he replied, with as little effort as possible. The kind of voice people use because they think, if they barely move, they'll quickly fall asleep again.

Clearly it was too early and Hannah would need to be patient. She did tap her feet, it was true. She looked towards her own bunk and smiled at the soft heap of her sleeping bag lying on the floor where it fell last night. She studied the bag and saw a face in its folds, like a Halloween laughing face. The sort of face that might be sinister or genuinely chummy because laughing faces can be either. If that sleeping bag could tell tales. Luckily it travelled in a compression sack, so it wouldn't have a chance to tell tales to other passengers. Besides, what could it say that might embarrass her?

She'd spent a few days with a generous, kind man with gruff good looks and a way of making love that silenced her restless thoughts and made her feel sexy and loved, a real woman. He didn't care that she was transgender. Would he have even known if his curiosity hadn't uncovered her past? He'd just fucked her brains out and she'd acquitted herself with honours, so there was no need to qualify her body, or who she was, with excuses or apologies. So, go ahead - just try it, sleeping bag. Everyone will think you're an asshole or simply jealous. You bag.

'I'll make him coffee', Hannah decided. 'No one can be grumpy if you come bearing coffee. Come bearing coffee? There must be a kink for that.'